As used herein, “asymmetric hearing loss” refers to the hearing loss or impairment of one ear that is greater than a hearing loss or impairment of the other ear. Prior art methods that compensate for asymmetric hearing loss require either surgery, profound degree of sensorineural hearing loss, or choosing between either a device for localization or a device for better speech clarity and intelligibility.
Prior art methods fail to provide a non-surgical option which enables both localization ability and clarity of speech. Individuals with asymmetric hearing loss and who have medical contraindications to surgery, or would prefer to have the ability to localize to the source of a sound AND improve intelligibility/clarity, currently have no treatment options. A non-surgical apparatus designed to help people with a large range of asymmetric hearing loss (normal to severe degree) would be an improvement over the prior art.